Europe’s Geopolitical Awakening

WORKING PAPER - APRIL 2021

Europe¡¯s

Geopolitical

Awakening

Europe¡¯s

Geopolitical

Awakening

AUTHOR

LUUK VAN MIDDELAAR

45, RUE D¡¯ULM 75005 PARIS

LEGRANDCONTINENT.EU

GEG@ENS.FR

REFERENCES

LUUK VAN MIDDELAAR,EUROPE¡¯S GEOPOLITICAL AWAKENING,

GROUPE D¡¯?TUDES G?OPOLITIQUES,

WORKING PAPER 8, APRIL 2021.

This working paper summarises the four lectures given

by Luuk van Middelaar at the Coll¨¨ge de France between

24 March and 14 April 2021 under the title ¡®L¡¯Europe

g¨¦opolitique: Actes et paroles¡¯. The author is grateful to

Professors Samantha Besson, Edith Heard, Vinciane PirenneDelforge and Thomas R?mer for the opportunity to inaugurate

the new ¡®Cycle Europe¡¯ at the Coll¨¨ge. Among the observers

and practitioners with whom he has been able to exchange

views on the subject for many years, the author would like

to thank in particular Hans Kribbe, Monika Sie Dhian Ho

and Frans-Paul van der Putten, as well as editors and/or

translators Daniel Cunin, Patrick Everard, S¨¦bastien Lumet

and Liz Waters for their excellent editorial suggestions.

Europe¡¯s

Geopolitical

Awakening

WORKING PAPER - APRIL 2021

Introduction

In Jena, Hegel wrote in his journal, ¡°Reading the morning newspaper is a sort

of morning prayer.¡± What he meant was that it was a way of adopting a position in the world, not on the basis of divine certainties, but rather in terms of

the world as it is. For the past ten or so years, a flood of events reported by the

press has been forcing us to adjust our concepts and our mental map of the

world.

President Putin unapologetically redraws maps and sends Russian poisoners

and cyber soldiers to Western Europe. Erdo?an, his Turkish counterpart, scoffs

at the edges of the Greco-European border, liberally deploying warships and

blackmailing us with refugees. China¡¯s strongman, Xi Jinping, engages in a

policy of divide and conquer through investments and vaccines, while in the

United States ¡ª no less under Biden than under Trump ¡ª the narrative of a

new Cold War spreads. Already in 2014, Donald Tusk, then President of the

European Council, declared ¡°History is back.¡± The events we have witnessed

since then have only accelerated its return.

Faced with power politics both new and old, European leaders are searching

for a response. In his speech at the Sorbonne, President Macron called for

¡°European sovereignty¡±, Chancellor Angela Merkel believes that we ¡°have

to take our fate into our own hands¡±, while President Ursula von der Leyen

wishes to lead a ¡°geopolitical Commission¡± and the Union¡¯s head of Foreign

Affairs, Josep Borrell, argues that it must learn the ¡°language of power¡±. They

all believe that Europe must become an ¡°actor¡± in order to avoid being the

¡°pawn¡± of superpowers.

Beyond these rhetorical injunctions, a geopolitical approach must be more radical: it requires a conceptual rupture. It requires our ethos, our mental world

view to change. In order to become a geopolitical actor, Europe must leave

behind the universalist and ahistoric thinking in which it found refuge after

1945 in regard to both values and economics. It must also accept the limitations

of space and time and re-learn the language of power. In short, it must begin a

true metamorphosis; one that will be painful yet liberating.

Power, Territory, Narrative

Let us attempt to outline a definition. What is meant by the concept of

LU U K VA N MID D EL A A R ?

HI S TO R I A N A N D P O LI T IC AL

PHILO S O PHER, PR OFE S S O R AT

LEID EN U NI VER SI T Y

geopolitics? Why would it be a more radical approach than often thought? I

will consider three key concepts: power, territory, and narrative.

Geopolitics is above all a politics of power. Rather than relying on law or the

market, its actors use power to achieve their objectives. In what forms, by

which means, in what ways is this power expressed? It all depends on the situation. Power being relative, an actor improves his own position partly by

weakening his adversaries or undermining a rival alliance.

The second key concept is territory. Geopolitics is more than power politics,

since it encompasses geography. It is about the strategic advantages or vulnerabilities of a country in relation to oceans and continents, to rivers, mountains,

or deserts. The approach therefore requires a spatial self-image, the will to define a territory, and to develop a strategic lay of the land in relation to other

actors.

WORKING PAPER - APRIL 2021

Thirdly, there is the narrative. While the prefix ¡°geo¡± puts power politics face

to face with a defined space, that space cannot be conceived without taking

into account a feeling of unity among the people living within its boundaries.

Whether it be a tenuous sense of shared experiences and interests or a true

community united around values, norms, and customs, geopolitical actors are

stronger when they speak on behalf of a collective whole. They therefore have

an interest in maintaining, modeling, and perpetuating a collective memory, a

story of ¡°us¡±1.

Of course, it is possible to use power, territory, and narrative in a number of

different ways, but anyone who neglects one of the three concepts is playing

a different game. Any serious geopolitical player displays a will to act, shows

an awareness of space, and tells a narrative which links the past, present, and

future of a given community. This is our point of departure.

The Pandemic is ¡°Redrawing the Map¡±

If the pandemic is challenging our mental map of the world, it is important first

of all to be aware that it has thwarted Brussels¡¯ economic vision: the idea of

open markets, with a competitive level playing field, where supply and demand

intersect around the entire world. Hence the European Commission¡¯s difficulty

in understanding that export bans ¡ª which are taboo in times of peace ¡ª must

be a part of our arsenal in times of crisis. It is a step which Ms. von der Leyen¡¯s

team ended up taking when it came to vaccines. In a pandemic, the laws of a

war economy take precedent over those of the market economy.

In the medico-political maelstrom of spring 2020, the European public ¡ª relentlessly bombarded with media coverage ¡ª found four revealing yet disconcerting ideas coming to their attention.

One: In this catastrophe, Europe is neither the world¡¯s lifeline, nor its Red

Cross, but rather a pitiful victim.

Two: In the fight against the pandemic, the great American ally, who had been

on the front line of every international crisis since 1945, was absent, even

powerless.

Three: It was the far-off and elusive China, misunderstood or underestimated

1 ¡ª Cf. the essay published in 2020 by Vladimir Putin on the origins of the Second World War.

by most of us, that delivered tons of medical material.

Four: On top of all this, the European public learned as the situation was unfolding that the line between emergency aid and power politics is a fine one and

that a benefactor can make demands.

These experiences disrupted Europe¡¯s geographic and historic consciousness.

The pandemic has forced us to look at the People¡¯s Republic of China through

a post-colonial lens and the United States through a post-Atlantic one. Europe

must redefine its continental position and identities.

When it comes to China, the pandemic highlights three fundamental characteristics of that country as a strategic actor ¡ª three assets which deserve to be

well understood.

WORKING PAPER - APRIL 2021

First: Long-term thinking. Chinese political culture, with its great civilization

and large population, thinks in terms of eras, decades, and centuries rather

than years and electoral cycles. 2049 is never out of Xi Jinping¡¯s sight, as the

centenary of the Communist Revolution and the year by which the country

anticipates being a leading economic, technological, and scientific power.

Second: Centralism. This allows Chinese leaders to send a single message to

the public ¨C not only within their own country, but also to the outside world.

Xi is first and foremost the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party,

which is more powerful than the State.

Third: An integrated vision. In the Chinese decision-making process, political,

economic, and security implications are always kept in mind simultaneously.

In external affairs, the new Silk Road ¨C just as the diplomacy by means of

masks and vaccines ¨C is at once a grand strategy and a network initiative, a

combination of commercial and geopolitical thinking, tactical operations, and

improvisation.

Essentially, China is ¡°copying¡± America¡¯s strategy from the 20th century but

applying and adapting it in and to the 21st. The Pax Sinica. After all, the United

States, has visibly and explicitly linked and continues to link economy, security,

and commerce, as well as cultural and geopolitical influence in a single Grand

Strategy. Europe on the other hand fragments its choices into distinct policy

areas in a sectoral approach divided among numerous actors, impeding adequate action as a geostrategic actor.

From the moment when a rival China shows itself to be a civilization and superpower, what narrative, what self-image and what power is Europe prepared to

engage with it, to oppose it?

These China-related questions also bring the relationship between Europe and

America into focus, even if long-standing ties make it difficult to define. The

United States¡¯ poor handling of the Covid crisis ¡ª hard to forget that President

Trump went so far as to recommend the ingestion of bleach to protect against

the disease ¡ª and the clear lack of aid provided to its allies have left their mark.

Of course, the newly inaugurated President Biden has been reaching out to us

since the beginning of this year, but America¡¯s absence in such circumstances

has undermined the country¡¯s claim of moral exceptionalism and global leadership. The resulting feeling of isolation among Europeans has disrupted our

relationship to space and time just as much as our discovery of the Chinese

giant.

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